from the rain
by Aiko Isari
Summary: [/shelter mv] Following the near-end of the universe, a boy and his friends took their magic monsters in search of the sleeping child of stardust to bless the land with prosperity.


I. i could never find the right way to tell you

The end of the world was so slow, those who were prepared for it didn't even realize it had come. They were in their bomb shelters and there was a great pain, a thing like sorrow taking physical shape. Then like the crackling of flames, it was the end.

Perhaps it was that one space-time oscillation bomb thrown in another world. Or perhaps it was the holes made by the legendary dragon now sealed in the earth. But worlds collided and the idea of earth ended.

What was left was the broken pieces.

People survived, of course. Because the worlds are malleable and when they fused, as a scientist said, they became more so. Anything became possible, but there were none prepared to control it, to recreate into an ideal. So the fusion simply settled around the survivors and their stray thoughts.

Before that, however, was the farewell between father and daughter, the words which would carry the hope of the future, and the dream of the people living in it.

The trouble of course came from remembering these words.

* * *

How long has she been here, the goddess asks herself?

She asks herself this as the bath water flows over her nose, eyes and head, harmless. She asks as her fingers prune a little and she imagines food she does not need to eat.

How long have I been here? She mouths the words and no one answers. Then the girl laughs at herself. "Of course no one answers," she says to the rain outside of her windows, and the stuffed orange and white cat at her side. "No one ever answers, not even you."

The cat toy falls over. The girl laughs.

"See?" She sighs. She has really gone insane. She looks at the tablet again. If she opened the messages, she would know how much time had past, but did she need to? No, not really. That was a fool's errand. Who would want to know? Who would want to know how long you had been lonely when you simply had been?

She goes back to her tablet. Where should she go today? To the waterfalls beyond her head? To the mountains where the animals can brush at her ankles and she can think they're real? To the space where her head can't explode because she can somehow still breathe?

The girl looks at the cat again and for a moment, thinks she is not a cat at all, not a stationary one anyway. Instead she is a cat who can walk on its hind legs and has pretty eyes with crosses in them. And its paws a creamier white than the milk she drank for her bones to grow.

And it talked, most important of all. For a moment, she thought she could see it.

Still, the cat remained a cat and the goddess girl laughs at herself again for daring to hope for a friend. She goes to her tablet and begins to draw anew.

Meanwhile her stuffed toy twitches.

* * *

The boy gazed at the sand as it blew, white and beautiful even with the stars setting as they did. It would never change no matter how much he looked. At least, for now. He watched the many moons turn overhead and breathed in the air.

"Taiga."

He turned to look up. Niko had hit his growth spurt as only he could: awkwardly. His arms even seemed to dangle a little. "Rina and Yuuya finished fixing the car thing again. You ready?"

Taiga nodded slowly. "Think I am." He looked at the hatch near his left foot and sighed to himself. "We might not come back here. Our parents are gonna be mad."

Niko raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who wants to go!" He crossed his arms. "You're having second thoughts now?"

"Course not." Of course he was. "I want to see what that old man was talking about. He left me that phone thing, and you the watch. He wants us to find that girl."

"Wanted," Niko corrected, more out of habit than anything else. "And I guess he did. Still. We dunno if it's gonna work."

Taiga made himself smile like his dad had used to smile. "Well, we won't know until we try, right? Let's go!"

He ran towards the direction of the old trailer, and away from his fears.

Not that he was any good at escaping them.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ ** Hello! Who hasn't watched the shelter anime music video by Porter Robinson? If you haven't go watch it it's great. And it inspired this, so seriously, check it out! Gonna be about fourteen ficlets, so enjoy!

 **Challenges:** AU Diversity Boot Camp - [scifi!AU] prompt -short, gameverse boot camp, Mangaverse boot camp prompt - bashful, Gameverse boot camp prompt - uncovered, Dicing Up Songs Challenge, Easter Advent day 8, write a fic where at least five different colors appear in the fic, Valentine's Advent 2016, day 20. write a family relationship, Diversity Challenge I45 Write in the scifi genre.


End file.
